I pledge to give no money, no support, no aid, and no help at all to the efforts of the NRSC.

There are scores of messages from angry and disallusioned Republicans threatening to join millions of normal Americans in dropping their GOP registrations. Then Erickson teamed up with another lunatic fringe wingnut, John Hawkins to send a petition to Cornyn demanding he rescind the NRSC's endorsement of the Republican Party's one outreach to a gay candidate. And when they got on a conference call with him yesterday he refused to respond to any political questions, pissing them off even more. Maybe that's why Erickson sent me this today:

Subject: Charlie Crist admits he'll be just like Arlen Specter

Florida media is reporting that, having taking [sic] the "no tax" pledge from American for Tax Reform last week, Governor Crist will not use his veto pen to stop the Florida Legislature from raising taxes to balance the state's budget.

More troubling, Governor Crist himself said yesterday that were he in the United States Senate, he would have voted with Arlen Specter to support Barack Obama's +$1 trillion stimulus bill.

Nonetheless, Senator John Cornyn, the NRSC, and the Senate Republican leadership have lined up behind the tax hiking, Obama supporting Florida Governor.

Call John Cornyn at 202-224-2934 and ask him if his endorsement of Charlie Crist is an admission the GOP should stand for nothing in order to win.

It sure seems that way.

Erick

On top of all that this video is driving the nutroots crazy crazier:

I wish them all the success in the world-- and was delighted that they managed to scare off the Republican Party of Florida from continuing to back Crist and that they attack him at every opportunity-- and we should all do everything we can to make sure Marco Rubio is the GOP candidate for the Florida Senate seat, something that would make all the wingers happy as clams-- until the inevitable Election Day vote count. Rubio is widely viewed as unelectable to any statewide office, although it is the very self-righteous extremism which so turns off mainstream voters that gets the lunatic fringe wet in their panties.

UPDATE: Erick The Red's Newst Attack On The NRSC

Maybe he expected something different from the NRSC? I mean the "R" stands for Republicans. This is what they do. Or have you been sleepwalking?

I told him, very politely, that I was disappointed in the NRSC endorsement of Crist. At a time when Senator Cornyn says we can capitalize on the anxiety people have about spending and deficits, it undermines his goal by endorsing a man who supports the spending and deficits and also says he’d vote for Obama’s stimulus.

Senator Cornyn responded that given a recent third party poll showing Crist at 54% and Rubio at 18%, Crist is the candidate who can hold the seat and the NRSC wanted to go on and support him.

I responded that there were more than 365 days before the election, Crist was elected statewide with high name identification, and Rubio has 365 + days to show people that Crist would support the policies that are increasingly unpopular in Florida.

I tell you this all here because you cannot now go to John Cornyn’s page at Facebook to see the exchange.

Whoever runs the page for him has deleted it.

That's a shame.

Erick

The influential and extremist GOP fringe group, Club For Greed jumped into the Florida controversy opposing Cornyn (again). The shady group's fanatic president, defeated member of Congress Chris Chocola, went on the attack against fellow Republican Charlie Crist. “Charlie Crist has shown he’s willing to say one thing and do another,” he said, in reference to Crist signing off on a budget to rescue Florida's devastated economy. The bill included a cigarette tax hike and was presented to him by a Republican state Senate and a Republican House. “Voters," Chocola continued, "deserve to know just how far he'll go for the sake of political expediency.” Chocola supports far right extremist Marco Rubio. Rubio is also being supported-- although not publicly-- by dangerous right-wing fanatics, the Diaz-Balart brothers, former Cuban terrorists currently representing two Miami Dade districts in Congress.

And the bloodletting between Crist and "Jeb Bush's personal hand-puppet" is spilling over into the rest of the Florida electoral battles. Many are not happy with the far right's gubernatorial candidate, ex-Congressman (and Bill Clinton inquisitor) Bill McCollum.

This is just what the Republican Party needs-- fresh blood, a young buck, a visionary whippersnapper.

Enter Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a man never shy about resisting the burdens of charisma, who has proclaimed his desire to succeed Gov. Charlie Crist.

In an announcement that had all the thrilling excitement of a novena, McCollum, who will be 66 come election day next year, launched his gubernatorial bid surrounded by more middle-aged white men than the Gasparilla Krewe.

The aging Howdy Doody of Florida politics has held this strange sway over the state Republicans. For McCollum it is always his "turn" at bat, pursuing nominations for higher office as if it was a matter of sub-tropical Manifest Destiny.

Back in the 2000 U.S. Senate race, Tom Gallagher, an infinitely better candidate with superb retail stump skills, was pressured to step aside by Gov. Jeb Bush and other party leaders to make room for then U.S. Rep. McCollum. At the time, it was felt McCollum had earned the right to run against Bill Nelson based on his leading role in the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton.

That's not a political campaign. It's awarding a nomination as if it was a Miss Congeniality contest. So McCollum won his party's sash and now Bill Nelson is in his second term as Florida's senior U.S. senator. Say, that was some keen political strategizing.

Now Florida's Republican mandarins are once more lining up like Apollo Creed's entourage in Rocky behind the Urkel of Tallahassee's quest for the governor's mansion.

Just how pulse-challenged is McCollum? His presumptive Democratic opponent is Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, who also has never been confused with Charo when it came to an effervescent presence on the hustings. Yet, compared to McCollum, Sink is now being touted in some circles as a veritable Margaret Thatcher meets Cher of the 2010 gubernatorial contest.

McCollum has been marketed as a steady, experienced candidate who has been repeatedly tested in the political arena, which is a nice way of saying this chap is extraordinarily skilled at giving concession speeches.

Still, if you are a Republican power broker sitting around the men's grill contemplating your goblet of 300-year-old Glennfidditch, no doubt McCollum's jib might well be to your liking - as jibs go. After all, throughout his political career McCollum has carved out a reputation as a highly partisan conservative Republican true believer.

So it had to leave some of the GOP purists standing behind McCollum choking on their Monte Cristos when the candidate suddenly started singing Kumbaya at his campaign announcement, albeit the Lawrence Welk version.

Doing his best impression of Mr. Rogers, McCollum noted he wanted everyone to be his neighbor, insisting he would reach across party lines and welcome bipartisan access and inclusion.

Of course when, according to several recent polls, only about 23 percent of the body politic regard themselves as Republican, one better give at least lip service to wanting to dance around the maypole with all manner of constituencies, unless one aspires to become less relevant than Katherine Harris.

Considering all the GOP smoking jackets slapping him on the back, McCollum's conversion to diversity did seem a bit odd. After all, when Gov. Charlie Crist starting palling around with less the than ideologically pure such as Democrats and independents, going so far as to heretically appear on a dais with the president of the United States in support of Barack Obama's stimulus package (Oh dear!), he was vilified by the Roundhead wing of the Republican Party as the Lord Haw-Haw of the Tallahassee's Apalachee Parkway.

Indeed, Crist was regarded as such a Republican apostate, when the popular governor announced his own intention to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez, the keepers of the Republican Da Vinci code of conservatism promptly started pimping Jeb Bush's personal hand puppet, former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, as a more worthy and dogmatically acceptable alternative.

Apparently news that the Republican gubernatorial primary was supposed to be more of an exclusive affair than a Skull and Bones smoker, didn't find its way to Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, who had been mulling over the race himself and whether Mrs. Bronson would let him go out and play. She didn't, and on Thursday he announced he won't run.

And thus the GOP apparently gets a clear primary pathway for a candidate whose prospects for election are at best problematic, while causing mischief in a Senate campaign where Crist is a virtual lock to win.

Perhaps this is what happens when the Republican brain trust regards 23 percent party identification as a mandate, rather than a product recall.